CHAPTER IV

jalapa does not flourish here, but is brought from the Indian villages of Colipa and Maqautla, situated in the valleys that run among the hills. The myrtle, whose grain is the spice of Tobasco, is produced in the forests by the river Boriderus; the smilax, whose root is the true sarsaparilla, grows deep down in the humid and umbrageous ravines of the Cordilleras; and cocoa comes from Acayucan. From the ever-green forests of Papantla and Nautla comes the epidendrum vanilla*, whose odoriferous fruit is used as a perfume. Thus these characteristic productions of the country come from the mysterious valleys of the neighboring mountain, where, nearly a thousand years before any of the present generation was born, flourished an unknown race of men as civilized as were the people of Palmyra or of Egypt, as vast ruins in the forests of Misantla and Papantla clearly indicate: a race unknown to the degenerate Indians, who now wander about the ruined edifices and isolated pyramids of these cities, lost in the forest, as they are to us. A thousand years have passed away—their history has perished forever. The old books say that the delicate little scarlet insect, cochineal, was once a product of this district, and Jalapa was its proper market, and the mart of all the other peculiar productions of the neighboring region, because it was the town on the high land nearest to the sea-port.